Interactive TV Goes Hollywood

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Interactive TV Goes Hollywood

LOS ANGELES – Memo to Hollywood execs: Think television, baby.

At this year's Herring on Hollywood conference, tinseltown companies are showing renewed interest in interactive television. On display are notables like Sony, Replay Networks, and B3TV; streaming video from Load Media and Virage; digital jukeboxes from E-cast and others that let you download music videos; and new digital video content from companies like WireBreak Entertainment, Giant Studios, and AtomFilms.

"What MP3 has done to the music business is going to happen to us soon," said Robert Tercek, senior vice president of digital media for Columbia TriStar's television group. "We have to be prepared."

He is. The Game Show Network now reaches 25 million interactive television households in the United States and is growing on the strength of properties like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Tercek's online with every major Sony show and sees huge opportunities overseas.

The surge in streaming video and interactive TV startups at this year's show is driven by the emerging demand for broadband access, speakers and attendees agreed. High-speed digital lines make it easier to download and play hefty video files or offer interactive TV.

Consumers want that capability. Snap.com recently that "one of five in the top 50 search terms had something to do with rich media," said keynoter Edmond Sanctis, COO of the NBC-controlled portal.

Replay Networks VP of marketing Steve Shannon agreed with Sanctis, who believes television as a communal experience is on its way out.

"Five years from now, we expect virtually all TV to be on demand," said Shannon, whose company develops set-top boxes that allow users to record and store programs. He has a recent US$56 million financing round to back his contention.

And there was the B3TV executive unabashedly arguing that, yes, interactive television was an idea whose time has come.

"Interactive TV will be a force for change on the order of TVs and PCs," said chief executive David Kaiser. "B3TV provides software and services for interactive TV, including software that enables set-top boxes that enable e-commerce transactions. TV sets have finally become a point-of-sale device."

He was mindful of the unfulfilled hype of a half decade ago that has caused many in the business community to regard point-and-click interactive TV as a pipe dream. But better technology, spreading broadband connections, and increasing consumer demand have changed the paradigm, he maintained.

His motto? "Interactive TV doesn't suck anymore."

For streaming video to succeed, start-ups count on a helping hand from the MP3 phenomenon, which has spurred the music downloading craze. In the near-term, music-related Web usage will remain the most popular Internet entertainment application, said Peter Clemente, vice president for market researcher Cyber Dialogue.

As video starts to take off, Hollywood studios are poised to play a growing role on the Web. Until now, noted Warner Bros. online executive vice president Jim Banister, the Web's been run on a technology-centric model that focuses on the creation of standards and a proliferation of competing products that feed a mass market.

Increasingly, though, sites need Hollywood's business model – what Banister calls the "exclusivity and cachet" of specific artists, TV programs, movies, music – to distinguish themselves from other sites.

Warner Bros., of course, knows all about exclusivity and cachet. It produces TV shows like E.R. and Friends, movies like The Iron Giant, and presses albums for artists such as Jewel and Chris Isaak.